Eliot’s Prufrock: Modernism Itself

‘Till human voices wake us, and we drown.¹ The last line of T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” relays in a few words the demise of what little flicker of resolve a downcast soul has mustered. It delivers the perfect, sullen coup de grace to Prufrock’s futile attempts at an exodus for his decaying spirit; a daydream that lasts not longer than a zephyr.

Eliot’s Prufrock is not simply another literary modern piece, some argue that it is “the first Modernist poem.”² The Love Song undeniably influenced the advance—if not the genesis—of Modernist literature. Espousing several defining facets of modernism and employing many a modernist tactic or style, Eliot’s work is a fine specimen of the then contemporary era of literature.

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets, And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes, Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?³ Lines depicting the dreary and the decrepit accentuate aspects of literary modernism such as being a “response to ‘sense of social breakdown’”⁴ and being “ironic but not unfeeling,”⁵ among others. Perspectivism, impressionism, and typical themes—to state a few—lend a distinct modern tone to the poem; Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky / In a minute there is time, For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.⁶

With the style of writing and underlying elements of modern literature, the poem vividly and effectively elaborates the dire degenerative condition of life and state of mind of a dwindling spirit. Eliot’s Prufrock is a definitive example of Modernist literature–one can truly say the poem is Modernism itself.

1, 3, 6   Lines from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

2   Lifted from an entry in enotes.com, see references

4, 5   From American Literature Sources, see references

References:

Gizzo, d. (2004, August 15). OVERVIEW OF LITERARY MODERNISM. Retrieved June 25, 2007, from Georgetown University Website: http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/sd224/Classes/handouts/LiteraryModernsim.htm

O’Conner, D. M. (2000, April). Literary Modernism, 1915-1945. Retrieved June 25, 2007, from Millikin University Website: http://www.millikin.edu/aci/crow/basics/modernism.html

1. S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1919). (1998, December 23). Retrieved June 25, 2007, from Washington State University: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/eliot.html

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Reviews, 1916-19. (1999, August 23). Retrieved June 25, 2007, from The Prufrock Papers: http://www.usask.ca/english/prufrock/recstart.htm

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot | INTRODUCTION. (n.d.). Retrieved June 25, 2007, from Enotes.com: http://www.enotes.com/poetry-criticism/love-song-j-alfred-prufrock-t-s-eliot